Pyotr Ilich Tchaikovsky

1. PYOTR ILICH TCHAIKOVSKY

2.

Peter wrote his music
during a time known
as the Romanic
period. He used his
great imagination
create beautiful
music that was
sometimes very
happy and
sometimes very sad.

3.

Peter Tchaikovsky first
became interested in
music when he was
four or five years old.
One day Peter’s father
brought home a large
machine that played
music called an
orchestrion. One piece
of music it played was a
tune from Mozart. Peter
loved Mozart’s music.

4. VOTKINSK

While Peter was growing up,
he was very sensitive. Things
that wouldn’t bother most
children seemed like the
worst things in the world to
Peter.
Peter had feelings about
things that most people
didn’t even think. He was
able put those feelings into
his music.

5.

P.I. Tchaikovsky was born
on May, 7 1840 in
Votkinsk, Vyatka. He was
the second of six
children. His father was a
successful engineer.
Pyotr began playing the
piano at the age of 5,
he also enjoyed his
mother’s playing and
singing. As a boy he
loved music, but he
didn’t think of giving his
life to it.

6. A lawyer

Peter played the piano and
flute pretty well. Music was
really a hobby than a
career. Peter’s parents had
planned on him to become
a lawyer. When he was 10
years old he began his
education in law. When
Peter was 21 he graduated
from law school and took a
job in a government office.

7. CAREER

But at the age of 21 Pyotr
decided, that music was
much more interesting
and he entered the
Conservatory in St.
Petersburg. Five years later
Tchaikovsky was made a
professor in Moscow
Conservatory.

8. Brothers Rubenstein

At the time Peter was growing
up in Russia hardly anyone
made a living by writing music.
Fortunately things began to
change. Anton and Nikolai
Rubinstein opened a music
school in St. Petersburg so Peter
quit his job and studied music at
the new school.

9. The fallen head

It wasn’t long before
Tchaikovsky did very well with
his music. Once he was
asked to conduct one of his
pieces for an audience.
Peter was so nervous, he
imagined his head might fall
off and held tightly to his
beard through the entire
performance.

10.

By the time Peter was thirty-seven
years old, he had written several
operas and symphonies, a ballet and
many of other musical pieces. Some
of his music was well liked, some was
not.

11. Private Life

Peter was not making much
money, but an amazing thing
happened. A rich widow,
Madam Nadezhda von Meck,
loved Tchaikovsky’s music and
offered to financially support
Peter on condition that they
never meet face to face. Peter
accepted the help and the two
became friends through their
hand written letters.

12. MUSIC

At that time
Tchaikovsky wrote his
first ballet “The Swan
Lake” and opera
“Eugene Onegin”.

13. CHILDREN’S ALBUM

P.I. Tchaikovsky wrote
a lot of plays for
children.

14. Music

In 1883-1893 Pyotr Ilich
wrote his best
symphonies №5 and
№6, ballets “The
Sleeping Beauty” and
“The Nutcracker”.

15.

Now Tchaikovsky was able to travel giving concerts
and gathering ideas for new music. On a trip to Paris,
France, Peter heard a newly invented instrument call
a celesta. It looked like a small piano and made a
bell-like sound. Peter thought it would be a perfect
instrument to add to his new Nutcracker Suite. Peter
had a celesta secretly smuggled out of Paris.

16. THE SEASONS

The seasons is a set
of twelve short
character pieces for
solo piano
composed by P.I.
Tchaikovsky in 1875.
Each piece is the
characteristic of a
different month of
the year.

17.

One of Peter’s talents
was discovering new
instruments and using
unusual new
combinations of
instruments to get
beautiful and exciting
sounds into his music. In
one of his most famous
pieces, «The 1812»
Overture, Peter even
used church bells and
real cannons to get just
the right sound.

18.

Peter Tchaikovsky
became famous all
over the world for his
beautiful music.
Though he never found
a person to fall in love
with, he did find
happiness composing
music about love.

19. GREAT COMPOSER

His compositions are so
popular now that it is
hard to believe that at
first they were not
popular at all.
Tchaikovsky was only 53
when he died. But he
lived long enough to
know that his music was
being played far and
wide over the world.